


A Shifting Character

by joy_shines



Category: Norse Mythology
Genre: Gender Issues, Multi, Pregnant Loki, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 17:43:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joy_shines/pseuds/joy_shines
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki dishes on why he loves shapeshifting, what that episode with the horse was really like, and his favorite form(s) to take.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Shifting Character

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Enochia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enochia/gifts).



What’s that? How do I do it? Fuck, honey, I know a thousand, and yet another thousand ways to deceive and distract, to evade and elide, to prevaricate and plot. I can slip through the slightest of shadows unseen, and I can wield my words like a rapier, radiantly ravishing the reason of my marks. But my favorite device? Oh, I find that nothing solidifies a good scheme like the right disguise...and, much like the method actors of this century, sometimes nothing short of becoming the the thing you seek to emulate will do.   
  
Yes, changing my form is my specialty - oh, sure, most of our kind do it. Freya has her hawk cloak. Odin has his Wandering Traveller glamour - you can not mention that I called it a “glamour” - old One Eye gets his ire up when I do that. Hel, even Frigga had that escapade with the Langobards...and that was more shifting than her husband ever did! No matter what they say now, I saw Frigga when she got back to Asgard...and she sure returned carrying more under her belt than she left with. The All-Father got the surprise of his long life that night. But no one, no one, else in our dubiously happy family does it with as much frequency, variety, and panache as I do. Oh, there are others. Zeus, man, that fucker will change into anything for a piece of tail. But because that patricide is a fucking sky god with his precious fucking thunderbolt, he still gets to be king of those gods. I, I, change for reasons as numerous as the forms I take, with style and enthusiasm for the art itself...and what does it get me? Insulted, cast out...betrayed by my blood-brother...but! I digress.   
  
You wanted to know about the shapes I’ve taken. One thing you have to get through your head, my dear, is that I’ve had millennia of changing shapes as I choose. I can’t just give you an itemized list of every time I assumed the form of an animal, or a plant, or another creature. Is there one you’d like to hear about in particular? _That_ one? Really? Ymir’s balls! I can not understand why everyone seems to be fixated on this incident. It’s not like females of all species don’t do it every gods-damned day. Don’t get me wrong, I fucking love taking female forms...but pregnancy and birth? That’s an experience I don’t care to repeat. Fine, fine. Your request for an interview got me out from under the ground - though, I still don’t know how you managed to get Grimnir to agree to this - so I suppose I can rehash the tale of my motherhood yet again.   
  
Right. So...there I am, right? The prettiest little grey mare you ever did see, prancing and frisking around that jotan’s huge - and I do mean huge, sweetheart - stallion. Of course the stallion starts chasing me...and I could have kept him running forever and spared myself this whole painful, sticky mess if it hadn’t been for this one particularly close-growing thorn bush. Stung like the fires of Muspelheim, they did. So this great stallion catches up to me, and sets about to mount me.   
  
Now...now, here’s where you must understand something about shapeshifting. When you shift into a humanoid form...it’s mostly like having your consciousness in another body. That is, you’re mostly still yourself - in your reasoning capabilities, personality, and so on - but tempered by changes in body chemistry. I dare anyone to suddenly switch gonads - and therefore hormonal balance - or age fifty years in either direction and see if it doesn’t change their personality a bit too. When you take an animal form, though, it’s much more like being a spectator in someone else’s body. You’re still there, in a - if you’ll pardon the expression...or don’t, I don’t give a fuck - god-like capacity, observing and directing, but the main action is happening in the animal brain. There’s so damn much instinct built in when you’re in an animal form that it’s easy to just let that take over, unless you’re really concentrating.   
  
So, the stallion is mounting me, and my mare’s body and brain are all about it. I’m observing this happen, and it’s suiting my purpose, right? The stallion is sure as Hel distracted, so I’m going along with what my current body wants. Also, I’d never fucked while in an animal form, so I was curious to test it out...and don’t give me that look. I said I hadn’t done it _before_. There’s a first time for everything, even for me. You bet your sweet ass that I made a fairly thorough study of it afterward. Anyway. The stallion  hasn’t been plugging away for long before I’ve determined that, as much fun as this form has been, I never - NEVER - want to be on the receiving end of a horse’s cock ever again. And then, of course, the bastard gets me pregnant. Left to my own devices, I would’ve shifted right back to my usual form, which does not include a foal in my uterus. Odin, however, informed me that it was part of my job to carry it to term. So, I gritted my teeth and ate grass for several months with eight small hooves kicking me in the belly. Constantly. The only bright side was that, since  neither of the parents were precisely normal horses, the pregnancy was shorter than usual.    
  
And the birth? Yeah, I don’t really want to talk about it. It fucking hurt, ok? You’ve seen videos of human birth, yeah? It’s about like that, but with horses. It’s nothing special or spectacular...ok, whatever, miracle of life and shit. I have no desire to be that kind of miracle worker ever again. I...I am not good at dealing with pain. I’m not tough, alright? There, Thor, you bastard, I said it. I’m pretty weak when it comes to enduring any sort of physical discomfort. Which is why I’m _fucking amazing at illusions_ and talking my way out of unappealing situations. Anyway. Fortunately, Odin decided that his precious little Sleipnir would do just fine with normal mare’s milk, so as soon as the cord was cut, I changed back to my usual form faster than Frey’s cock gets hard when his sister walks in the room. So that’s that. The sordid details of how Loki Laufreyson carried and mothered Odin’s eight-legged mount.   
  
What else do you want to know about? My favorite shape? Right, well, I mean...there are a lot of different values for “favorite,” you know? For all-around mischief-making and pure pleasure, though, I’d say I like the “lithe young maiden” form. Not, of course, that I have just one female form...or even only one young female form...but I like being a young woman best. Back in my heyday, I could cause the most mischief with the least trouble to myself in that form. In those bad ol’ patriarchal days, it was almost too easy to use a pretty, female form to incite jealousy and desire, and thereby charm and wheedle my way into or out of anything. In a female form - and this is something most of the Aesir dopes never thought of - I could also gain access to spaces forbidden to men. Which, that’s fun just for the pleasure of being around women for awhile. The macho Aesir boys can get so tiresome...and women are - well, at least in those days, the women tended to cultivate cunning and cleverness, since they were not encouraged to develop more physical sorts of prowess.   
  
For trickster like myself, it was like being among family. What? No, I couldn’t “be friends with the goddesses!” What a fucking stupid thought. For one thing, every god in Asgard would’ve been only too happy to flay me alive if they’d caught me in a private audience with one of their wives...yes, yes, even if we were “just talking.” Who would believe that of me? Granted, their fears were all well-founded...but I never slept with their wives in my usual form. Mostly. And, sure, I went among the goddesses in female form, from time to time, when I needed the kinds of information only discussed in the women’s chambers...but I took good care to drug Fulla’s mead or have “Frigga” send her on an errand. So, even when I was in their company, I had to pass myself off as that reserved, fastidious pinch-penny. It’s not the most relaxing way to spend an afternoon. With human women, though, I could gossip and giggle, scheme and plot and plan with the rest of them. Really, I liked being a woman more than I liked wearing my usual form.   
  
Today, it’s different...gender isn’t quite as restrictive - or as clear cut! - as it was then. I like that. Oh, I think I’ll always like being slim and agile, for preference. And feminine-looking, no matter what chromosomal configuration I’m using. It suits me. I really enjoy, though, the new breadth of options available to me. What am I doing with these options? Well, I’ve gotten really good at putting politicians in compromising positions. That’s always fun. No, I _don’t_ limit myself by party lines - it’s almost cute how you seem to think I have scruples. It’s just so satisfying to see the high-and-mighty fuckers brought so low. That’s all. On that note...we should wrap things up. I’ve got lies to tell, cons to run...you know the drill. Any final questions?  
  
Ah. Yes. You picked up on that - bravo. No, this is not my “true” form, just my usual form...I chose my words with care. What sort of queer deceiver would I be if I walked around in my “true” form all the time? Surely you are familiar with the fact that knowing the true name of a being gives you power over it...it’s a similar principle with form. Even my blood-brother, of the twice-nine charms, who knows all the true names of all the gods, does not know my given form. Those few who know it lie now in Hel’s domain. So, now, if you’ll excuse me, it has been entirely too long since I’ve been granted a reprieve to walk the world. Hm? Oh, no, I’m not going back. No doubt, Odin will track me down soon enough...but it’s nothing to me if you swore to him that I’d return to my prison after you were done with me. If you don’t know better than to trust the word of Loki Lie-Smith...then you damn well deserve whatever he does to you. Odin doesn’t deal lightly with oath-breakers - ask me how I know. No, don’t, actually. Ta-ta, my dear! Perhaps I’ll see you under the earth.


End file.
